Turkey: Erdogan’s dirty game of deception
A surprise visit from the Turkish prime minister to Bartholomew I. But like other conciliatory gestures in the past, this one also risks producing no results. Benedict XVI’s reservations on the entry of Turkey into the European Union. The caution of Vatican diplomacy
ROME, August 27, 2009 – Samuel Huntington called Turkey “Janus-faced,” you never know if it’s a friend or enemy of the West.
* Not on this website. We have exposed Erdogan as a radical Islamist on many accasions and will do so till the cows come home…
Sufi Terrorism in Kashmir: Two Muslim myths get battered by the historical record: the absurd idea that Islam was introduced peacefully in India, and the more common misconception that Sufism has always been harmless.
The same thought must have come to mind for Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, when last August 15 he welcomed Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a visit to the orphanage and monastery of Saint George Koudounas on the Princes’ Islands in the Marmara Sea.
It was the first time that a Turkish prime minister had gone to the Princes Islands, traditionally inhabited by Christians, and to a building, the orphanage, which after being requisitioned by the Turkish authorities was ruled to belong to the ecumenical patriarchate by the court of Strasbourg in June of 2008.
During his visit, Erdogan, accompanied by four of his ministers, had lunch with Bartholomew I and with representatives of the religious minorities in Turkey – Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Jewish, Syriac Orthodox, and Catholic – to whom he made guarantees against all forms of religious and ethnic discrimination.
“My neighbor must be met with love, because he is also a creature of God,” Erdogan said, citing a maxim from the Mevlevi Shiite confraternity, which emerged on Konya in the 13th century, with some elements taken from Christianity.
Asked for a comment, Bartholomew I told Asia News: “Erdogan’s presence was an honor for us, and it gave us an opportunity to present our problems directly, although he already knows about them. We invited the prime minister to the see of the ecumenical patriarchate and to Halki, and Erdogan thanked us for the invitation.”
Halki is another island, the site of the seminary of theological formation for the ecumenical patriarchate, which was closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Last June 10, in Brussels, Olli Rehn, the European Union commissioner for enlargement and therefore also overseeing the possible entry of Turkey, stated that this entry is conditional in part on the reopening of the Halki seminary.
Erdogan has until December of 2009 to present the authorities in Brussels with an account of the progress that Turkey has made in meeting the standards necessary for entry into the EU. For the patriarchate, this is one more reason to hope that the theological seminary of Halki will finally be reopened and resume its functions.
Unfortunately, however, “Janus” has repeatedly frustrated expectations, showing this and other religious minorities in Turkey not its friendly face, but its hostile one.
Regarding the patriarchate, for example, the Turkish state continues to decline to recognize its religious “ecumenicity.” It treats it as a local body established for the worship of the Greek Orthodox, headed by a leader who must be born a Turkish citizen, devoid of legal personality and therefore also of the right to property. The annihilation of the patriarchate – which in Turkey today has been reduced to a few more than 3,000 faithful – has so far shown no serious signs of turning around.
This also applies to the other Christian minorities. The most substantial community, that of the Armenians, was decimated less than a century ago by a genocide that the authorities in Ankara refuse to acknowledge, and today there are just a few tens of thousands of them left, out of a population of more than 70 million inhabitants, almost all of them Muslim. There are about 25,000 Catholics, with six bishops, 10,000 Syriac Orthodox, and 3,000 Protestants of various denominations.
Like Erdogan, but not for the same reasons, all of these religious minorities have high hopes for Turkey’s entry into the European Union. For them, this entry would mean the recognition of room for freedom that they fear will otherwise continue to be significantly limited.
In Europe itself, however, their reasoning receives little consideration. Some governments there, including those of Italy and Germany, are in favor of Turkey’s entry into the EU, while others, like that of France, are against it. Nonetheless, both sides are thinking in terms of national interest. Calculations involving the oil and gas pipelines that originate in Turkish-speaking, Muslim countries in central Asia, and pass through Turkey, take precedence over those concerning religious freedom.
***
Against this background, the position of the Holy See also appears two-faced.
On the one hand, Vatican diplomacy takes into account both the expectations of the Catholics and the other religious minorities in Turkey, and the geopolitical factors seen as favoring its entry into the EU. The man most candid in expressing this cautiously optimistic view has been Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state, in an interview with “La Documentation Catholique” at the beginning of 2007.
Having stated that the Catholic Church has no “special power to promote the entry of Turkey into Europe, or to veto this,” Bertone said in the interview that “without Turkey, Europe would no longer benefit from that bridge between East and West which this country has always been in the course of history. [...] Leaving Turkey outside of Europe also risks fostering Islamist fundamentalism within the country.”
On the other hand, however, Church authorities are also sensitive to the opposing dangers that the entry of Turkey into the European Union could bring: not a beneficial integration of Turkey into Europe, but a “catastrophe” for a continent that has renounced its Christian identity.
The word “catastrophe” is in the title of a book that contains the most incisive overview of these objections. Published in Italy this year, the book was written by historian Roberto de Mattei, vice president of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and director of the magazine “Radici Cristiane.” It is entitled “La Turchia in Europa: beneficio o catastrofe?”, and opts decisively for the second of these two hypotheses.
In effect, the historical precedents are not encouraging. Modern-day Turkey was one of the most vital areas of Christianity during its first centuries, and still at the beginning of the 20th century, after centuries of Ottoman rule, it still had deep imprints of this Christian identity, and numerous faithful. Over a few decades, these imprints have also been nearly wiped out by the combined pressure of the exaggerated secularism of Kemal Atatürk and of the Islamist resurgence that ultimately came to power with Erdogan.
Benedict XVI is fully aware of these dangers. When he went to Turkey in November of 2006, it was just a few months after the killing of a Catholic priest, Andrea Santoro, who was shot to death by an Islamist fanatic while he was kneeling in prayer in the little church of Trabzon.
http://sheikyermami.com/2009/08/31/erdogan-and-the-christians-few-promises-zero-action/
Glenn Beck Has Brass Gonads
Glenn Beck on oligarhy; John Pilger on the clever young hypnotist
Doug Giles/Townhall
Don’t you know Obama and his ilk wish to God (or whoever the heck they wish to) that Glenn Beck would fall into adultery with an Argentinean newswoman, or cut his jugular vein while shaving, or show up drunk, high and naked to his FOX show and forever be publically vilified, marginalized and thus muzzled?
Beck has formally joined Rush as an Official Pain in Barack Obama’s Backside (OPIBOB). (Are you an OPIBOB yet?) Yep, not only has Obama’s administration called Rush out, but the White House has now phoned Beck during his TV show in an attempt to get him to dial the heck down.
Glenn said this past week that Barack’s minions were actually calling his show while he was on air because he was being a meany. When I heard this I was sitting there eating pretzels and drinking a martini thinking: Are you kidding me? Is Perez Hilton running the White House? The White House is actually calling Beck during his program in an attempt to get him to cease and desist his digs? Wow . . . sounds, pretty gay to me. No offense to gay people, of course.
So, what’s next, Whine House? Are you gonna post an angry note on Beck’s Facebook wall? Are you going to place Glenn’s picture on the White House website and draw naughty stuff on his forehead? Unbelievable. Not only do we have to contend with and check a radical Socialist-in-Chief at every point, but we also have to a field a cheeky, paranoid, oversensitive staff that makes Nixon look like Andy Griffith’s Aunt Bee.
So, what’s all the hubbub about? Why is Beck under their epidermis? Well, it’s principally because he asks questions. And if there is one thing that derails the Hope and Change Train, it’s questions. Oh, I almost forgot: Facts also get them purty PO’ed. Questions and facts . . . can’t have that. Yep, both of those little damnable ditties are detrimental to Obama’s oligarchical grasp.
For those who missed Beck’s week of must-see TV, he boldly parleyed into the President’s court questions several million of us want to ask but don’t have a top-ranked TV show on the most watched cable news channel to get the proper respect and response. Here’s a little sample of Beck’s mischievous queries. On Monday he inquired:
- We are in so much debt, why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs before we stop the flow of red-ink?
- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN. How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN stimulate the economy?
- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill before they even had time to read it, why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?
- Why won’t members of Congress read the bills before they vote on them?
- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at when they ask their congressman to read the bills before they vote on them?
- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist, become a special advisor to the president?
- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?
- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?
- If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1,000-page plus bills actually impose on the American people?
- If the “public option” health care plan is so good, why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?
- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—why do they spend so much time talking instead of listening?
- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress what Rahm Emanuel meant when he talked about “not letting a crisis go to waste”?
- What are the czars paid? What is the budget for their staffs/offices?
On Tuesday Beck wondered aloud:
- Who is “surrounding” the President in the White House?
- Do any of the President’s advisers have criminal records?
- Are the President’s advisers working to better the country or their own ideals?
- Who are the anti-capitalists in Washington?
- What roles do they have in crafting bills?
- What was “STORM”? What happened to the founders, and where are they now?
- What qualifications must one have to be a Presidential adviser?
- Should a communist have the ear of the President of the United States?
- What role did the Apollo Alliance play in crafting bills?
- Does the President know the co-founder of the Weather Underground is a board member of the Apollo Alliance?
On Wednesday Glenn wanted to know:
- Why does the FCC have a diversity “czar”?
- Who is Mark Lloyd, and how does he plan to “balance” the airwaves?
- Will he bring back the Fairness Doctrine, or worse?
- Cass Sunstein once said he wants to balance the Internet; is that next?
- Will broadcasters who leave the airwaves be allowed to go to satellite or Internet without government regulation?
- Is there any place (that has a mass audience) where the government won’t regulate free speech?
- Why does it seem every member of the Obama advisory team hates capitalism, unless those companies (like G.E.) are in bed with the administration?
If Lloyd has his way, stations that don’t comply with the government’s definition of the “public interest” will have to pay a massive fine—which helps support public broadcasting:
- What will be the definition of “public interest”?
- Who defines “public interest”?
- Why should it be balanced? Because it’s public airwaves? (Well, there are public roads that go by my house, and I don’t count how many Republicans and Democrats are driving on them.)
On Thursday GB thought:
- Why do we need a civilian force?
- Who is posing a threat to us?
- Who will this “force” be made up of?
- Who is the real enemy?
- Does the president know of a coming event? If not, who builds an army against an unrecognized enemy?
- Why won’t the media get off their butts and look into these radicals in the White House? And into this civilian army?
(*For the full list visit: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/) You see, Beck was just asking questions. Hey, White House . . . Can we not ask questions anymore? Is that verboten? Can we not ask our elected officials to explain themselves, elucidate a bit about their odd buddies and make clear their policies and proposals?
Can we not question you boys with boldness, hold to the truth, and speak without fear of reprisal? Huh?
In the words of my redneck hunting buddy, better known as the West Texas Warrior, “Why, hell we can!” Not only can we, ladies and gents, but we must.
Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is our nation; this ain’t Cuba or Venezuela yet. We pay the government’s bills, and therefore they answer to us, they represent us—and if they don’t then we take their airplanes, limos, mistresses and five-star hotels away from them. Yeah, I believe that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Keep asking the hard questions, boys and girls. Don’t let them tread on you.
Great job, Mr. Beck.
This is absolutely appalling!
There is a link at the bottom that shows the executive order.www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488HB 1388 PASSED
Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U. S. needs to know…..Something happened… H.R. 1388 was passed behind our backs. You may want to read about it.. It wasn ‘ t mentioned on the news… just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.
Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA. This is the news that didn’t make the headlines…By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in “migration assistance” to the Palestinian refugees and ”conflict victims” in Gaza .
The “presidential determination”, which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006. ;Let’s review….itemized list of some of Barack Obama’s most recent actions since his inauguration:
His first call to any head of state, as president, was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the
Palestinian territory.His first one-on-one television interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.
His first executive order was to fund/facilitate abortion(s) not just here within the U. S. , but within the world, using U. S. tax payer funds.
He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.
He ordered overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.
He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and the “terror attack” on 9/11.
Now we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to, and live in,
the US at American taxpayer expense. These important, and insightful, issues are being “lost” in the blinding bail-outs and “stimulation” packages.Doubtful? To verify this for
yourself:PLEASE PASS THIS ON… AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW
WE are losing this country at a rapid pace.
Should a communist have the ear of the President of the United States?
A Fabian Commie – Obama won’t mind one bit!!
Look at the UK Cabinet-MARXIST’S ….wearing their new label of FABIANS!
ALL COMMUNITARISTS’ COMMIES!!